Over the years, Nicole has built up quite a resume of flamboyant deception and criminal activity. Anyone remember how she convinced Chloe to let Brady believe she was dead? Or how she tried to kill her then-husband Victor (and, for awhile at least, we all thought she succeeded)? Nicole's latest scheme all started with a tragic miscarriage; afterwards, she determined to keep it a secret from the father, EJ, and to substitute another baby. Ultimately, she illegally adopted one baby (from Mia), then switched it with Sami's baby, born the same night. Thus far, only one part of her scheme has unraveled. EJ knows she adopted Sydney; what he doesn't yet know may ultimately be Nicole's complete undoing.

Like all of us who have told a tall tale, for Nicole, "there's almost a sense of relief because I wanted to tell him, but I didn't tell him, because I didn't think he would be on my side. Now it's already out, so I may as well back peddle in a way and try and make it work." Arianne continued, saying that Nicole is "constantly living in guilt and fear," but, now that the truth is out, she's got to find a way to keep her little family together. I actually have the confidence that EJ will just have a temper tantrum and then get over it and he'll be fine and he loves me." Good luck with that, Nicole!

Nicole's belief in this matter, of course, stems from that fact that if she didn't "think that way, then she would be so emotionally distraught, she wouldn't be able to survive. She's a survivor, you know? So this is just the next step to survive. Now what do I do? And it's kind of a cool quality – kind of weird – but kind of a cool quality for this character because she constantly has to fight for survival and that's the only way she knows."

Her survival skills mean she's always (or almost always) able to quickly spin a new tale to cover up the first. When EJ presented her with the pregnancy pad, she had to think on her feet. The result? According to Nicole "women buy them so you can have maternity clothes for the nine months. She's so smart – well, the writers are so smart – to come up with that. In a way, she's crazy, but she's really got an intelligence to her because she has to make sure people believe her. For a brief second, it was complete panic! And then, survival skills! Survival skills kick in! Come on; everyone does it! I don't know what you're so upset about."

The next truth Nicole had to deal with was the tape recording one of EJ's minions made of her conversation with Brady. In it, she admitted to having had a miscarriage. But what she told EJ was, according to Arianne, "great. I love how she comes up with this." It was "obviously an emotional scene, but I say I wasn't talking about me, this year. I did have a miscarriage, but not this baby. But, yeah, it was sheer panic. How am I going to get out of this? But how long can you keep lying?"

There are two things, however, that make Nicole's predicament somewhat easier to identify with. First, "none of this was a very well-thought-out plan on her part. It was a day-to-day plan, but it wasn't a master plan about how she was going to get away with this. Which is why I think people feel sympathetic towards her because it wasn't so methodical. It wasn't first-degree murder!"

Second, this does all stem from Nicole's tragic miscarriage, and there are plenty of other women out there who "have post-miscarriage issues and post-partum issues." Arianne continued, "I think stories like this have always been around. You hear about hospitals that have accidentally switched babies at birth or the couple that just had the wrong embryo implanted and they carried this child that's not theirs and they thought was theirs. There are crazier stories, I think, than the one that I'm involved in. Now it's so much easier to relate to this character because it could possibly have happened."

And everyone has, at one time or another, felt compelled to not tell the complete truth. "I think deep inside people who might in real life not be in a similar situation but situations where they may lie or find they have to lie," Arianne said, "somewhere in there you know you're going to get caught, but you do it anyway. Even as a kid. Kids learn how to lie, and you know you're going to get caught but you do it anyway." Someone else in Salem who knows a thing or two about lying is Sami. Perhaps that's why she and Nicole have formed an unlikely friendship?

As Arianne put it, "when Sami finds out, she's actually kind of supportive. She was doing something similar. If Grace had not died, Sami would be doing the same kind of thing. She wanted to protect her child from the DiMeras." What Sami did wasn't really any better than what Nicole did. Nicole's was perhaps a bit darker, as she did switch the babies, but, Arianne continued, "for Sami, she knows what she did. She's at an age where she gets it. She, I think, respects Nicole because they live in the same world of deceit. I think there's a mutual respect, even though it's so scary to trust each other, but yet we want to, but we know that we're sort of mortal enemies at the same time."

Something tells us they'll eventually be mortal enemies again. Like, say, when the rest of the story comes out. In the meantime, Nicole will continue to try to keep her hands on Sydney, and EJ. "She's so in love with this child now," Arianne told us. "She's probably the best thing that's ever happened to her. I think she still takes very, very good care of this child. I'm sure the baby has to sense the nervousness coming from her mother. At the end of the day, well, it's about Nicole's selfishness, but, deep down, she never came from a solid family. She has this idea of the perfect family, but I don't think she knows what one really is. That's what she's trying to create. If she just told the truth and trusted peopled they would support her and she would have a better life. She can't seem to grasp that concept."